A woman holds an umbrella as she walks along a street in Tokyo on July 23, as Japan suffers from a heatwave. MARTIN BUREAU / AFP / Getty Images

An
ongoing heatwave has sent a record 71,266 people to hospitals across Japan between April 30 and Aug. 5 with 138 people dying from heat-related illnesses, The Japan Times reported, citing the nation's Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

The busy capital of Tokyo saw the highest number of people taken to hospitals, at 5,994. Osaka followed with 5,272. About 40 percent of the total tally consists of elderly people.

The health threats of climate change are on full display this summer as communities around the world deal with record-breaking heat. Carbon pollution driving climate change is causing significant human suffering by making extremely hot days more common, and increasing the frequency and severity of drought and dangerous wildfires. So how do we keep ourselves safe as the mercury climbs?

A man wipes his face with a towel during a hot day in a residential district in Seoul on Aug. 2. Jung Yeon-JE / AFP / Getty Images

The record high temperatures scorching the Northern Hemisphere this summer are not relenting as August kicks off.

A 15-day stretch of over 35-degree Celsius weather in South Korea has led to the deaths of 29 people from heatstroke, the South Korean Ministry of Health, Welfare and Disease Control said, as CNN reported Friday.

Deadly heat waves are breaking records and making headlines around the world this summer, but they have nothing on the heat waves that the North China Plain is likely to see in the future if we don't act now to combat climate change.

People cool themselves at the fountain of the Louvre Pyramid in Paris on July 25, as a heatwave continues across northern Europe, with wildfires breaking out in northern Scandanavia and Greece. BERTRAND GUAY / AFP / Getty Images

Climate change increased the odds of northern Europe's current heatwave, according to a preliminary assessment from scientists.

"We estimate that the probability to have such a heat or higher is generally more than two times higher today than if human activities had not altered climate,"
according to World Weather Attribution, an international network of researchers who conduct analyses of real-time extreme weather events and its possible connection to climate change.